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Across several weeks, coercive phone calls recurred. At first, reportedly from an ex-law enforcement official and a former defense officer, and then from law enforcement directly. In the end, one resident states he was called to the police station and told clearly: stop speaking out or experience severe repercussions.

This third-generation resident is among those fighting a expensive project where Dharavi – an iconic Mumbai neighborhood – will be razed and transformed by a corporate giant.

"The distinctive community of this area is like nowhere else in the world," says Shaikh. "Yet the plan aims to dismantle our community and silence our voices."

Contrasting Realities

The cramped lanes of Dharavi stand in sharp opposition to the towering buildings and elite residences that loom over the settlement. Dwellings are constructed informally and typically missing basic amenities, informal businesses produce dangerous fumes and the atmosphere is filled with the suffocating smell of exposed drainage.

For certain residents, the prospect of Dharavi transformed into a developed area of luxury high-rises, well-maintained green spaces, modern retail complexes and homes with two toilets is a hopeful vision come true.

"We lack adequate medical facilities, proper streets or sewage systems and there's nowhere for youth to recreate," states a tea vendor, fifty-six, who moved from southern India in 1982. "The sole solution is to tear it all down and provide modern residences."

Community Resistance

But others, such as this protester, are fighting against the plan.

All recognize that Dharavi, consistently overlooked as an illegal encroachment, is desperately requiring economic input and modernization. However they worry that this project – lacking community input – could potentially convert valuable urban land into a playground for the rich, evicting the marginalized, immigrant populations who have lived there since generations ago.

It was these shunned, relocated individuals who established the vacant wetlands into a widely studied marvel of local enterprise and business activity, whose economic value is estimated at between one million dollars and a substantial sum a year, making it among the globe's biggest unofficial markets.

Displacement Concerns

Of the roughly one million residents living in the dense sprawling zone, less than 50% will be qualified for replacement housing in the project, which is estimated to take an extended timeframe to complete. Others will be moved to undeveloped zones and salt plains on the far outskirts of the metropolis, threatening to fragment a historic community. A portion will receive no homes at all.

Residents permitted to stay in the area will be given units in high-rise buildings, a major break from the evolved, collective approach of living and working that has maintained this area for so long.

Commercial activities from tailoring to pottery and waste processing are expected to shrink in number and be transferred to an allocated "business area" far from residential areas.

Existential Threat

In the case of Shaikh, a workshop owner and long-time resident to call home Dharavi, the redevelopment presents a survival challenge. His makeshift, three-storey operation creates apparel – sharp blazers, suede trenches, decorated jackets – marketed in high-end shops in upscale neighborhoods and overseas.

Relatives resides in the rooms underneath and his workers and garment workers – migrants from different regions – reside there, enabling him to manage costs. Outside the slum, Mumbai rents are often significantly more expensive for minimal space.

Harassment and Intimidation

In the government offices close by, a visual representation of the redevelopment plan depicts a very different perspective. Well-groomed residents move around on cycles and eco-friendly transport, purchasing international baked goods and pastries and socializing on a terrace outside a coffee shop and dessert parlor. This represents a complete departure from the inexpensive idli sambar breakfast and low-cost tea that supports Dharavi's community.

"This isn't development for our community," explains Shaikh. "It's a huge land development that will price people out for our community to continue."

Furthermore, there's distrust of the business conglomerate. Run by a prominent businessman – a leading figure and a close ally of the government head – the corporation has encountered allegations of favoritism and financial impropriety, which it denies.

Even as local authorities labels it a collaborative effort, the developer contributed $950m for its 80% stake. Legal proceedings stating that the initiative was questionably assigned to the developer is under review in the top court.

Continued Intimidation

Since they began to vocally oppose the redevelopment, local opponents claim they have been experienced ongoing efforts of coercion and warning – involving communications, explicit warnings and insinuations that opposing the initiative was comparable with anti-national sentiment – by figures they assert represent the corporate group.

Part of the group alleged to have making intimidations is {a retired police officer|a former law enforcement official|an ex-c